Wenonah Hauter, the
executive director of Food & Water Watch, joins us to discuss her
new book, "Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in
America." Hauter tackles the corporations behind the meat, vegetables,
grains and milk consumed by millions every day — including some of the
most popular organic brands. "Foodopoly" details how a handful of large
corporations control the nation’s food production in ways that limit how
small farms operate and how ordinary people make choices in grocery
stores. And in the wake of the recently passed provision dubbed by
critics as the "Monsanto Protection Act," Hauter also discusses the new
report by Food & Water Watch, "Monsanto: A Corporate Profile."

The spread of respect and power in a community can be measured using the following 2 scales;

Economic Distribution

If a communities economic distribution becomes slanted then it is moving towards despotism.

If middle income groups grow smaller, then despotism has a better chance to gain a foothold.

One sign of a move towards a despotic society is the concentration of land in the hands of a few people.

When farmers lose thier farms they lose thier independence.

In communities that depend on almost on a single industry (such as a
factory or mine) will have find that maintaining economic balance is a
challenging problem

Tax Burden

Another sign of a poorly balanced economy is a taxation system that presses heaviest on those least able to pay.

Larger amount of a poorer person's income is spent on food, so sales taxes press heaviest on the poor and middle class.

The Information Scale

A community rests low on the information scale when the press/media is
controlled by a few people and when citizens HAVE TO accept what they
are told.

If students are not taught critical thinking skills (with a well rounded
education so they have basic knowledge of history, politics, sophism,
economics etc.) THEN despotism has a good chance of establishing itself.

By keeping students unable to think critically, you get adults who can't
think critically (or have any ability to evaluate facts from lies).
These adults will accept whatever thier chosen authority source tells
them.

AMYGOODMAN: Let’s go back to Senator Jon Tester of Montana. It’s unusual that a family farmer is a senator these days, but that’s just what Senator Tester is. In March, he tried to block the rider decried by critics as the "Monsanto Protection Act." He spoke from the Senate floor.

SEN. JONTESTER: Mr. President, Montana is home to thousands of working families that make a living off the land. Like my wife and I, they’re family farmers and ranchers. The House of Representatives is prepared to toss those working families aside in favor of the nation’s large meatpacking corporations.

The House inserted a provision in the bill that gives enormous marketing power to America’s three largest meatpacking corporations, while stiffing family farmers and ranchers. Family-run production agriculture faces tremendous market manipulation. Chicken farmers, hog farmers, cattle ranchers all struggle to get a fair price from the meatpackers, and if they fight back, they risk angering corporate representatives and being shut out of the market. Thanks to this provision, the Agricultural Department will not be able to ensure a fair, open market that put the brakes on the worst abuses by the meatpacking industry. What’s worse is that the USDA took congressionally mandated steps to protect ranchers from market manipulation over the last few years. That’s what we told them to do in the 2008 farm bill. And this provision will actually overturn rules that the USDA has already put into place. But apparently, intense, behind-the-scenes lobbying won out in the House of Representatives, and now we’re back to square one with the big meatpackers calling the shots.

The second provision sent over from the House tells the USDA to ignore any judicial ruling regarding the planting of genetically modified crops. Its supporters are calling it "Farmer Assurance Provision." But all it really assures is a lack of corporate liability. The provision says that when a judge finds that the USDA approved a crop illegally, the department must re-approve the crop and allow it to continue to be planted, regardless of what the judge says. Now let’s think about that. The United States Congress is telling the Agricultural Department that even if a court tells you that you’ve failed to follow the right process and tells you to start over, you must disregard the court’s ruling and allow the crop to be planted anyway. Not only does this ignore the constitutional idea of separation of powers, but it also lets genetically modified crops take hold across this country, even when a judge finds it violates the law—once again, agribusiness multinational corporations putting farmers as serfs. It’s a dangerous precedent. Mr. President, it will paralyze the USDA, putting the department in the middle of a battle between Congress and the courts. And the ultimate loser will be our family farmers going about their business and feeding America in the right way.

Sunshine Week shouldn’t be a show-and-tell, Mr. President. And slipping corporate giveaways into a bill at the same time that we call for more open government is doubling down on the same policies that created the need for Sunshine Week in the first place. That’s why I’ve introduced two amendments to remove these corporate welfare provisions from the bill. Montana has elected me to go to the Senate to do away with the shady backroom deals, to get rid of handouts to big corporations and to make government work better.

AMYGOODMAN: That’s Montana senator, a Democrat, Jon Tester. He’s a family farmer, lost several of his fingers in a meat-grinding accident when he was nine years old. This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. Aaron?

AARON MATÉ: Yeah, and we’re still with Wenonah Hauter in Washington, the executive director of Food & Water Watch. Wenonah, you’ve come out with a book called Foodopoly: The Battle Over the Future of Food and Farming in America. We’re going to turn to that in a second, but first, your group is just putting out a report called "Monsanto: A Corporate Profile." Lay out for us your findings.

WENONAHHAUTER:Well, our findings are that Monsanto has so much power over the political process that it’s basically buying public policy. That’s why we’ve seen this terrible rider recently. It’s why we have such a lax process for approving genetically engineered crops. And it goes back all the way to the 1980s, when these crops were being developed, and Monsanto went into the Reagan administration and said, "You know, we’ve been involved in a lot of litigation." Because Monsanto had been a producer of some of the most dangerous chemicals—PCBs, dioxin—they were involved in hundreds of lawsuits. So, they didn’t want a new law that would actually be a real review process for genetically engineered crops. They wanted to have a very lax set of bureaucratic hoops that they knew they could jump through and that their young startup competitors would not be able to jump through. And that’s how we’ve ended up with this mishmash of different agencies involved in approving genetically engineered crops.

It’s why we don’t really have a regulatory system that is doing the research that’s looking at the long-term impacts that these crops have, not just in terms of health and safety, but the economic impacts because of the increasing price of seeds, the increasing use of the co-branded herbicides. Roundup Ready has doubled in use in the last few years. Now we’re seeing new genetically engineered seeds created that have even more dangerous chemicals that are co-branded with them. And so, we’re really on a downward spiral with these types of crops. And genetically engineered crops are the underpinning of our dysfunctional food system. As Greg mentioned, they are the components of processed food.

AMYGOODMAN: And how this issue—talk about the corporate farmer versus the family farmer, like your family in northern Virginia.

WENONAHHAUTER:Well, you know, what’s happened over the past several decades is that it’s become increasingly impossible for farmers to make a living. And I mean even midsize and small commodity farmers. We have fewer than a million family farmers left. And if you look at what a midsize family farmer—and I’m talking about commodities—corn, wheat and soy—they make, on average, $19.2 thousand. And shockingly, half of that is from a government payment.

Now, there is a movement for community-supported agriculture. You know, I’m lucky. I grew up on a farm. I inherited my family’s farm. But my farm is 45 miles west of Washington, D.C., where there’s a huge market for foods that are grown with organic practices, where people want to bring their children out to see a farm. Now that’s very different from the vast majority of farms in this country. Only one-third of the farms in this country are anywhere near a metropolitan area. We need to shape a food system that allows farmers to make a living and transition into a sustainable farming future. And we can’t do that with the current rules in place. And I think that really that’s why I wrote Foodopoly, to lay out why we need to look at the bigger structural issues that are causing our dysfunctional food system. And I’m talking about the consolidation and concentration of power in the hands of just a few companies, and companies beyond Monsanto.

AARON MATÉ: Well, one of those companies is Wal-Mart. And you have a chapter called "Walmarting the Food Chain." Can you talk about this?

WENONAHHAUTER:Well, over the past few years, since the—well, it’s the past few decades, since the Reagan administration eviscerated antitrust law. Those are the rules that prevented companies from getting too big, from buying their competitors, from concentrating power in the hands of a just—just a few companies. Since that time, we’ve seen the grocery industry consolidate. We now have four grocery stores that control 50 percent of sales, and in many areas 70 to 90 percent of sales. Wal-Mart is the very largest. One out of three grocery dollars is spent at Wal-Mart. And if you look at the economic impact, the Wal-Mart heirs have as much wealth as the bottom 40 percent of Americans.

And what Wal-Mart has figured out, how they operate, is that they have a logistical system that sucks all of the profit out of the food chain. So, one thing is that they need enormous volume. So, they would much rather deal with a giant meatpacker like Tyson than a lot of smaller family farms or even midsize farms. They have a system where they force their suppliers to use their IT system, to track their own inventory, to use all of the contracting requirements that they put into writing. In fact, there are no contract negotiations with Wal-Mart. And so, even the largest food processors in this country have to do whatever Wal-Mart says.

And we have 20 food-processing companies that do control most of what Americans eat. So, you know, there’s all this rhetoric about competition and that our economic system is built on competition, but what we’ve actually seen, especially since the 1980s, is that all of the rules and regulations are geared at allowing enormous consolidation. And so, for the food industry, beyond Wal-Mart and the grocery retailers, we have the big food-processing companies. So when a consumer goes into the grocery store, they believe that there’s a lot of diversity and choice, but actually we have 20 food-processing companies that own most of the brands in the grocery store. And unfortunately, 14 of these large food processors also own many of the largest organic brands.

So this kind of concentration is making it very difficult for consumers to have real choices about what they eat. And it’s squeezing all of the profit out of actually producing food, even producing corn and soy. A conventional farmer makes about three to five cents off of a giant box of corn flakes, about three—two to three cents on a giant bag of corn chips, and under a penny on the high-fructose corn syrup in a can of soda.

NOTE: Notice the kinds of equality of rights that is necessary for a true Democratic society to exist (as opposed to a Tyrannical Despotism)...

Vintage lessons in civic harmony, or how small-scale common courtesy paves the way for large-scale peace.

In 1945 and 1946, immediately following the end of World War II, Encyclopedia Britannica’s films division produced two educational short films, one on democracy and one on despotism, exploring how societies and nations rank on the spectrum from democracy to despotism by measuring the degree to which power is concentrated and respect for individuals restricted. More than half a century later, these analyses remain a compelling metric of social harmony and discord, in an era when we’re still struggling to understand the psychology of riots in a global political climate where the tension between despotism and democracy is in sharper focus than ever.

A community is low on a respect scale if common courtesy is withheld from large groups of people on account of their political attitudes, if people are rude to others because they think their wealth and position gives them that right, or because they don’t like a man’s race or his religion. Equal opportunity for all citizens to develop equal skills is one basis for rating a community on a respect scale.”

Sharing respect means that each shares the respect of all, not because of his wealth or his religion or his color, but because each is a human being and makes his own contribution to the community — from healing its sick to collecting its garbage, from managing its railroads to running its trains.”

You might recognize footage from the films, which are both in the public domain, from Temujin Doran’s provocative observations on the distortions of democracy in Market Maketh Man, highly recommended if you haven’t already seen it.

Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter and people say it’s cool. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.

Notes:

You can measure any community on this simple scale;

Be careful NOT to assume that the 'mere form of a government can guard you against despotism'.

Germany was a Republic and yet a despotic ruler was able to take root (i.e. Hitler).

A competent observer looks beyond fine words and noble phrases. [even Hitler used fine words and noble phrases - You look instead at history, actions, behaviour results of policies (and who was the controller behind the scene NOT just the face of an action)... Then follow the dots into the present using a holistic perspective]

Two yardsticks have been proven to help any community to discover how close it is to despotism;

The Respect Scale

As a community moves towards despotism, respect is restricted to fewer people (such as restricting respect to ONLY members of a small group or one political party).

A community is becoming despotic is respect is withheld from a large group of people on account

of thier political attitudes. (such as persecution because someone is wealthy, of a different race or religion etc.).

The ability of every citizen to better themselves (and educate themselves) is another important measurement of determining the level of respect in society.

The opportunity to develop useful skills is important but not enough as the opportunity to put such skills to use (make a living) is another important measurement on the respect scale.

The Power Scale

This scale is useful to determine the citizens share in making decisions for thier community.

When decision making is left in a few hands (or compiled into a huge bill so that there is at least one issue you feel so strongly for that you have to vote for it even if other aspects of the bill is bad for the community/country - then you have limited choice {and have been tricked!}) THEN the community is moving towards despotism.

Today, a community can move towards despotism by allowing power to become concentrated in the hands of a few.

The test of despotic power is that it can disregard the Will of The People.

Quotes

"Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every moment, a new beauty." - Rumi

"God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that." - Joseph Campbell

"Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all previous ages that thought so. How often have we not seen the truth condemned! It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history." - Carl Jung

"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society." - George Washington

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” - Dalai Lama

“Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison. When the door is so wide open?” ― Rumi